Mr. Scot

I hate to burst your bubble kid, but you dont have the firepower to shoot down a paper airplane. It's clear you know next to nothing about the business side of football. A lot of people don't so that can be forgiven, but you'd be wise not to act like you do because it makes you look bad when you get stuff wrong. I'm guessing you're in the 13-14 age range based on the silly argument that Gettleman deserves no credit for anything good but all the blame for everything bad. That's dumb, but not surprising coming from someone that age. You should grow out of that (I hope). But the lack of knowledge about the team though? That's pretty bad. Near as I can tell, you didn't even watch much - if any - of last season. How can you not know who guys like Andrew Norwell, Mike Remmers and Philly Brown are? Are you only interested in one player? It's a team sport, kid. But even if your focus is mostly on the QB (which happens) Newton isn't going anywhere for, at the very least, the next three years. And if he has to play under the franchise tag, given that he'll be getting paid a pretty hefty sum, I doubt he'll feel all that bad about it. My personal expectation is they'll get a deal done next offseason, but it could happen even during the season. Who knows? Bottom Line: Newton isn't going anywhere for a while, so you can quit panicking.

Kid, you have no idea how this stuff works in the real world

Probably, though I think Bush still believes he's a number one. (so does Trent Richardson)

Saw that. Loads of people had him being a Patriot.

Good analogy If they'd have had message boards back when Vince Papale played, I wonder how many Philly fans would have freaked out that the Eagles kept him around for three years. The fun too is that people are actually freaking out about the fifth receiver on the roster, a kid who's highly unlikely to be used on special teams again (especially given that the coach who prepped him for duty isn't in that position anymore) assuming he even makes the roster at all. Reality is there are probably a hundred or so guys that make an NFL roster by the skin of their teeth on an annual basis. The vast majority of them might last a year, maybe two at the lost. Many of them won't even finish a full season, and if they do it could be shuttled back and forth between the 53 and the practice squad. Bersin is one of those guys. He had a year's run on a professional football team, and he might get another, but in all likelihood he won't. He'll end up another of those guys that got to live the dream for a year or so, then moved on to a normal life. And good for him. But he's one of a hundred guys who'll do that all across the league. And freaking out about that is pretty silly.

See, it doesn't help your cause when I have to explain basic football concepts in each response. See, the whole purpose of training camp and preseason is player evaluation. Roster and depth chart decisions are made based on camp performance. the guy who owns this forum went to quite a bit of it last year, and even without being a professional he saw how well guys like Norwell, Philly Brown and others were doing. And let's be clear, nobody held a gun to the GMs head and told him to draft Benjamin. It was a choice, as are all draft picks. Two rounds later, we went with a guard and later on, a runningback. Again, all by choice. And if Newton leaves, it will be because the two sides couldn't come to agreement. But that's not really a possibility for at least three years, thanks to the franchise tag. And yes, that can be applied even if the player doesn't like it. happens all the time with every team in the league. And no, that's not a serious question. It's the kind of question a teenager asks when he's losing an argument.

Well if ya wanna go to the stats... A total of 449 players caught passes in the league this past season. Bersin's tally of 13 receptions means he caught more passes than 208 of them. Among those are the names Denarius Moore, Ricardo Lockett, Jacoby Jones, Dri Archer, Bruce Ellington and..DeAngelo Williams. Yardage? Bersin had 113 total. That puts him ahead of 188 guys, including Frank Gore, Zach Miller, Khiry Robinson and again, DeAngelo Williams. He was two shy of matching yards with Denarius Moore, but Bersin has a TD on his stats. Moore does not. So...Worst receiver in the league? Not even close.

you're down on Norwell, Remmers and Stewart? Kid, did you even watch last year's games? And no, by half the draft I mean half our picks. For example, our first and third picks this past draft were used on a wide receiver and a guard. Both of those are on offense, just to be clear. As to the last paragraph, yeah...you don't know much about how this works in the real world, do you?

You do realize that if you tag him, he can't walk away, right? A pretty solid percentage of the guys who get the tag wind up signing long term with their team. That's why teams use it.

You're proving that last statement pretty clearly today.

The NFL Draft has a lot of good receivers in it this year.

Hardy was specifically tagged to be a one-year rental, but that situation blew up because of his personal life. And unless you think Cam's going to have a domestic violence incident this offseason, those are extremely different situations. So no, I don't find myself agreeing with you.

Yeah, except that's crap... (link) Luck's dad said the same thing to Steve Reed on his old Carolina Growl site. Would you like to tell us that yuo have a better source than Luck's father?

The key phrase in this item.

Just imagining the conversation in the Chiefs front office... "So, do you think we should put the Franchise Tag on Justin Houston?" "Nah. He wants to be a free agent." "Oh, okay. We'll just let him walk, then."

You realize that happened for one play, right? Every team in the league has substitution packages that put backup receivers in primary spots. You make it sound like they were targeting Bersin on the majority of snaps all year.

Seriously? You actually posted that? The whole purpose for the tag is to keep players with whom you haven't been able to reach an agreement yet. Remember Julius Peppers? Even better, how about Lance Briggs? Briggs had burned every conceivable bridge with the Bears when they tagged him, yet he played under the tag and eventually came out with a long term deal that kept him in Chicago up through this offseason. Who would use the tag on someone that's already said "yes, I'm only interested in playing here"? Good grief

Also, found this observation interesting... Josh Katzowitz @joshkatzowitz · 12h 12 hours ago Just realized: out of 12 players who caught 10+ TDs last yr, 5 won't be back w/their team (J. Graham, Wallace, Maclin, T. Smith, J. Thomas)

Aaron Wilson @RavensInsider · 2h 2 hours ago Safety Darian Stewart to Broncos on two-year deal http://fw.to/AkamsdK This offseason, free agents who visit the Falcons keep signing with the next team they visit

3-4 DE is roughly equivalent to 4-3 DT. Hardy played inside for us from time to time.

Dianna Marie Russini @NBCdianna · 15h 15 hours ago Reggie Bush left New England without an offer per sources. #Patriots

You want to talk about guys that left but leave out the reasons? Seriously? And yeah, if we'd have just traded a high pick for Josh Gordon, I'm sure we'd be in great shape now. You want to trade for Mike Wallace perhaps? You realize he carries a ten million dollar cap hit right? We don't get any relief from that just because we traded for him. That trade would have removed our ability to do pretty much anything else. The team absolutely is making the effort to fill slots. Just because they're not going after players you like doesn't mean they're not doing it. And if you seriously think Hurney and Gettleman are similar in the way they do things, just wow

There's an old saying about keeping your mouth closed to avoid being thought a fool rather than opening it and removing all doubt. To be clear, I didn't skim anything you said. You were just wrong. Rivera did have the choice to start Norman. He also had the choice to start Andrew Norwell, Jonathan Stewart and others, but chose not to. This is, by the way, the same coach who talked up guys like Sione Fua, Armanti Edwards, Captain Munnerlyn and others thay were later cut by, guess who. And the reference to 2011 tells me a lot especially given that the guy you're criticizing didn't arrive until 2013. And as was pointed out elsewhere, Gettleman has used half the draft picks made since taking the job on offense, plus undrafteds like Norwell and pickups like Remmers and Fozzy. Plus, believe it or not, we get to draft again this year too. And again, FYI since this is another thing you don't seem to know, whether Newton signs an extended contract or not, the Franchise tag ensures he's here for at the very least, three more seasons.

Gross retired. So did Wharton and Hangartner. Gamble too after being told he wasn't coming back. Smith was let go for numerous (valid) reasons. And Hardy, well...that story's been told. Mitchell was offered a higher contract than he was worth (as the Steelers have since learned). And the other three you mentioned were all gone before Gettleman ever got here so discussing them is pointless in current context. Cam and Luke are both set to receive new contracts shortly, probably next offseason when we have more cap room (which we;ll have because our GM is refraining from making dumb decisions). And drafting well is the foundation for everything else, so it's useless without that. You'd be wise to remember that out current 'franchise history' is in only its third year. Hurney doesn't work here anymore, so talking about how he ran the team is in this context, again, useless.

The coach sets the depth chart, or didn't you know that? (guess not) Benwikere and Norman both did very well as starters. Good grief. Did you even watch this past season? Guessing you also weren't paying attention when all of the young guys talked about how they couldn't have gotten where they were as quickly without help from a good veteran teacher, a fella by the name of Roman Harper. And Cason? He was an old charger that Rivera kept starting up to the point Gettleman cut him. Like it or not, gettleman was a big part of our successes this past season. You can spin as hard as you want trying to take credit away from him, but you're doing a lousy job (especially since it seems you don't know some basic info). Face it kid. You posted a stupid thread and numerous folks have called you out for it. All your efforts to defend it are just making it worse.